


memoria in caritate

by skywalking-across-the-galaxy (BadWolfGirl01)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt, Episode: s02e21-22 Twilight of the Apprentice, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Introspection, Love, POV Rex, Pain, Post-Episode: s02e21-22 Twilight of the Apprentice, Sad Ending, well more like she's not actually dead but everyone thinks she's dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-04-04 00:25:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14008101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BadWolfGirl01/pseuds/skywalking-across-the-galaxy
Summary: Commander Tano, Ahsoka, his ‘Soka--she’s not coming back.





	memoria in caritate

**Author's Note:**

> title is "in memory of love" in latin

The  _ Phantom _ lands on Atollon with a muted  _ thunk _ and the familiar groan of settling durasteel, and maybe it’s just his imagination but the sound the ramp makes as it lowers sounds like  _ grief. _

(Grief  _ does _ have a sound, though many people would disagree with him, argue that feelings can’t have  _ sounds; _ Rex, however, has seen--and heard--enough grief, enough jagged-edged sorrow, in the Clone Wars to be entirely confident in his assessment. It’s the sound of hearts shattering into millions of motes of glass; of air ripped brutally from lungs, like an invisible sucker punch to the gut; of the particular heavy  _ thump _ a body makes as it hits the ground. It’s the wrenching and choking of sobs so violent there are hardly any tears slipping out; the way a hoarse voice scrapes over a throat raw from crying. It’s a blaster firing, a TIE screaming, a lightsaber clattering to the floor, armor painted 501st blue clacking together as its wearer hits the ground.

It’s the way her voice falls, eyes dimming and head dropping, as she tells him  _ Padme’s dead, and I think Anakin is too. _

And now, now, it’s the soft sound of only two pairs of footsteps on the  _ Phantom’s _ floor.)

The General--well, not  _ the _ General, as in General Skywalker, but his  _ new _ General, Kanan--leaves the ship first, slow and cautious and hesitant, the reason for which becomes evident the moment Rex sees the white bandage tied around the Jedi’s eyes.

The General, blind?

There’s no blood on the bandage. Rex wonders what  _ happened. _ How did he go blind, then, if there’s no blood? (Kix would’ve known, or at least known better than he does now.)

The twi’lek, Hera, the Jedi’s partner (wife?), comes forward, equal parts horror and joy (horror at his injury, joy that he’s alive at all) spread across her face, and she lifts her hands to Kanan’s jawline and cups his face in her hands.

(He’s been in that situation before, in both places, both times after dangerous missions during the War. The first time, she’d been injured after a run-in with Grievous not long after becoming his Commander  _ (experience outranks everything, _ he still tells her then, but she’s clever and understands tactics and she’s brilliant and beautiful--not that he notices such things about his  _ Commander, _ though), and he’d run into her in the empty corridors during the ship’s night-cycle. He hadn’t been able to help himself, had reached up and curled the fingers of one hand around her jaw, brushing against her right  _ lek, _ as though to reassure himself she was still there, still alive, still breathing--and then he’d remembered his propriety, and his rank, and had pulled away like he’d been burned.

The second time, it’s  _ him _ who’s been injured, and he’s leaning against the cool durasteel wall of the barracks in just his blacks, exhausted from the walk from the medbay, though he’d never admit it, when she finds him.  _ Don’t get yourself killed, please, _ she whispers, eyes wide and vulnerable, and one trembling hand presses flat against his cheek, her thumb gently caressing the slope of his nose, just below his eye.  _ Between you and Master Skywalker, I’m terrified every time we go on a mission. _

He closes his eyes, just for a moment, savoring the touch of her palm against his skin, the sweetness of this stolen few seconds of closeness. Because any minute now, someone will come around the corner, will intrude, and they’ll be forced to pull apart like they’re not dangerously close to a forbidden--relationship, a Commander and a Captain, not to mention a Jedi and their  _ attachments are forbidden _ Code. For now, he can revel in her touch, can pretend--what, exactly?  _ I’m sorry, Ahsoka, _ he murmurs, her name slipping out before he can think better of it (even though she’s asked him to call her by name when they’re alone, instead of rank),  _ I didn’t want to worry you-- _

_ Shh, _ she hushes him gently, drags her hand down his face, slides her thumb across his lips.  _ I know, Rex. I just--I worry about you, _ and now her other hand slips around the back of his neck, fingers loosely curling into the collar of his blacks. He lifts his hands, shakily running his left hand down the length of her back  _ lek _ and farther until it rests in the small of her back, trailing the fingers of his right hand across the white markings on her forehead and cheeks and chin.  _ I worry about you too, ‘Soka, _ he breathes, and then she closes the last of the space between them and presses her lips against his.)

The other set of footsteps is at the top of the ramp, now, startling him from his reverie, and Rex tears his eyes away from the General to stare at the  _ Phantom, _ hoping for--for what, he’s not sure. Because it’s just Ezra, standing there, shaken and pale and somehow  _ smaller _ than he’d been when they’d left, and he descends slowly, hesitant, blue eyes finding and holding Rex’s brown ones.

There’s pain and guilt and anger and self-loathing and  _ shame _ all swirled together in Ezra’s gaze, mixed with a healthy dose of apology, and he  _ knows. _

Commander Tano, Ahsoka, his ‘Soka--she’s not coming back.

Somehow, he hadn’t thought it possible.

Oh, he’s been witness to no small amount of death, both in the War and after, and yet--somehow he’d never even  _ imagined, _ not in his wildest dreams, or his worst nightmares, that she would die (die, and leave him  _ alone, _ he’s alone now, so few left who remember the old days, and now the entire 501st is--gone, in one way or another). It doesn’t seem  _ real. _ Like a dream, or a joke, or something; time moves slow and thick around him, choking him, locking every muscle tight, and he can’t--he can’t look away from the boy. 

_ (Why didn’t you save her, _ he wants to scream, but he’s a  _ clone _ and he’s better than that, she’d want him to be better than that, and so he bites his tongue until his mouth is full of the metallic tang of blood, holds back the words. Doesn’t do such a good job holding back the  _ emotions, _ though, he thinks, noticing how the General looks towards him, even blind, probably sensing him through the Force or something like that. He wonders, vaguely, in some distant corner of his mind, what he feels like to the Jedi; if Kanan senses the storm trapped inside Rex’s skin.)

He wants to scream.

It’s not  _ fair. _

She’s young still, and a Jedi (not anymore, whatever, she’s still-- _ was _ still--one of the last living people in the galaxy who’d lived in the Temple, who’d had true Jedi training), and full of fire, exactly what this Rebellion needs; he’s just an old clone long past his expiration date, a white-haired reminder of the very thing that brought the Emperor into power and destroyed the Jedi Order and wiped out the Republic. If anyone has to die, it should be  _ him. _

(He failed her, he realizes; as one of her troopers, her men, it’s his job to  _ protect _ her. He should’ve  _ been there. _ If only--if only she’d have let him come along.)

It should’ve been him.

_ I’m sorry, ‘Soka, _ he says silently,  _ I love you, _ and he’d never told her, he  _ should’ve told her, _ and he can only cling to the desperate (fool’s?) hope that the Force will deliver his words to her, wherever she is now.

_ I love you. _


End file.
